Batman Forever: Red Book Edition - The 15th Anniversary Enhanced Edition

Masterfully created update of a classic fanedit, one of those select few that have transcended our little niche communities and earned mainstream recognition, even from Joel Schumacher himself (even though it's unclear if he actually got to watch it). INIGHTMARES' version looks absolutely beautiful, the grainy quality and the quasi-black and white greatly enhance the narrative and make it more dreamlike, or should I say nightmarish; and the slight touches he added on his own are great aesthetic improvements. If I'm not giving this a perfect 10 overall is for the same shortcomings I find in Scaperat's original edit which don't fit my ideal vision, namely that he didn't cut much of Jim Carrey and I would have gone merciless on him. But if addressed, it wouldn't be Scaperat's edit anymore... In any case this is still a huge improvement over the theatrical version, and until the legendary Schumacher Cut is released (not holding my breath given what's happening with DC movies these days) this is one of the very best ways to watch Batman Forever, if not THE very best. Well done!

This is a great (and honestly necessary) update to a classic fanedit.

The video quality looks great (the addition of film grain was a nice choice), the sound is terrific (and so are the new additions, like the thunder transition in the intro, and the giant bat).

Great job, INIGHTMARES. As Palpatine said in Phantom Menace, "We will watch your career with great interest."

I've been on a Batman kick lately. The work that went into the upscaling of this edit is really incredible! It keeps a good consistent look throughout the movie.

The overall narrative does seem to flow better than the theatrical release and you get a better since of that the director wanted for this movie before studio interference came into play.

This is a nice look into the phycology of Bruce Wayne. I would recommend this for anyone who has an interest in the early Batman films for sure.

The music and colour grading are blended together rather nicely to create an atmospheric viewing experience with the intro immediately drawing me in with it's use of text, music and colour to the point that it almost felt like the start to a very different film and I mean that in the best possible sense, the effective use of colour throughout this edit by the editors gave the colour grading and isolation in certain scenes more meaning pertaining to the characters internal and external developments within there sub narratives and the main overarching narrative.

The placement of the deleted scene of Arkham Asylum at the narratives conception coupled with the scene of Arkham Asylum at the narratives conclusion gave the edit a nice circular bookends kind of feel and the utilisation of other deleted scenes helped to strengthen Batman & Robin's character arcs with the death of The Flying Graysons being way more dramatic than the theoretical cut thanks to some creative editing choices and well I am aware that last point has nothing to do with deleted scenes I thought I'd bring it up since it ties to start of young Grayson's character journey.

Well the bombastic campiness and overacting gets on my nerves, though that's more of a problem I have with the source material rather than this edit and I imagine reducing the large amounts of camp and overacting would prove quite tricky given how the theoretical source was produced. The eradication of small detrimental moments such as the BatButt and certain characters moments of questionable intelligence alleviate some of the campiness and overacting with the new colour grading and music certainly helping with said alleviation.

The idea of tying the colour red to the edit via Thomas Wayne's journal was genius and the small douses of red that appeared in those flashbacks gave them meaningful levels of intensity perfectly reflecting the rage and grief within young Bruce's soul, I kind of wish there was more red throughout this edit like the Cover Art heck I wouldn't have minded if the entire edit was doused in red mainly because it was so engrossing and pleasing to look at as I found myself pausing and rewinding several times just so I could engross myself in it's dark gothic beauty.

I agree with another reviewer that there was a little bit of an inconsistency with the colour visuals here and there though that's more of a nitpick from me than a major detraction as is Batman's silent mouthing around the 19:18-1919 minute marks, I get that it may have been put in place to remove/silence his exasperated ''Women'' comment but I think just cutting to the pulling of the lever would have worked better though if I am ever to watch Batman Forever again than I will gladly choose this over it's theoretical counterpart anyday.

This is an absolutely fascinating fan edit.

An update of the very popular Scaperat fan edit The Red Book Edition. An edit I remember thoroughly loving when it was initially released 15 years ago... wow, where has the time gone? But with the passage of time, would an updated version hold the same magic?

I can happily say YES.

What Inightmares has done here is truly interesting on a technical level. His approach was not to rebuild this edit from scratch using new HD sources, but instead used the original fan edit file and UPSCALED it to Hight Definition. He then corrected the added deleted scenes to the proper aspect ratio (even rebuilding the audio for many of these scenes) and gave the edit a new colour grading... removing much of blues and oranges, while highlighting the Reds.

The new colour scheme is immediately very engaging, and even gorgeous in many scenes. It has a very definite Sin City style vibe at times. Though on a personal level, I wish it had been a bit more visually consistent and even. An example is the Circus scene which starts out in multi-colours but then switches halfway through to a very desaturated, almost Black & White look. But this is subjective and a creative choice by editor which I can respect and does not overly detract from the enjoyment factor.

Another interesting observation, even though the main objective of this project was to create an HD version of the original fan edit, this new version has a decidedly Standard Definition look. The use of high grain, diluted colours and deleted scenes (as Topaz can only do so much, it is not a miracle worker) evokes the feel of times gone by. And this is not a negative knock. For me, it feels wholly appropriate as an love letter to the original. But if viewers are going into this edit expecting a crisp, clean, sharp, bright MODERN experience, they might be disappointed.

This was clearly a passion project for the editor and it shows in every frame.
A wonderful tribute and update of a fan edit classic.
Well worth the watch!

Thumbs Up!